


Raktasmriti

by CarminaVulcana



Series: The Life and Times of Amarendra Baahubali [3]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 02:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15764766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarminaVulcana/pseuds/CarminaVulcana
Summary: Red. The three letters that bind them together, destroying them, and delivering them to salvation. Or eternal torment.





	Raktasmriti

Red. A color of vitality, fire, and rage.

The sheets under Devasena’s prone form are stained red. Her tired face, sweaty after the exertion of giving birth is bathed in the golden hue of the lamp. The high-pitched crying of her newborn son pierces the silence in the little hut with an affirmation of life. She is relieved. She is proud.

She is apprehensive.

Her husband has gone to save the life of the man who is almost like a father to them both. She has faith in Baahubali’s abilities. She should not be worried.

And yet, deep in the pit of her stomach, there is a tightness that has nothing to do with childbirth. Her heart is racing for some reason. Something doesn’t feel right.

Even the night is too still, as if waiting for a creature to pounce upon it from nowhere and tear its tranquility to shreds.

XXXXX

Red. Like the _alta_ she dips her feet in every morning. Like the rose petals she showers upon the Gods every night. Like the royal silks in which Amarendra was wrapped when she first laid her eyes on him.

She does not like that color anymore. As it drips from Katappa’s fingers, as it glistens on his sword, and as he smears her own hands with it—red is now the color of her blunder--her wrath whose consequences will inevitably burn everything around her.

Red is the color of her guilt. The color of murder. The color of her crime.

There is no place for someone like her even in hell. What do you call a mother who killed her own child?

Katappa’s words feel like acid on her soul. Her limbs refuse to move. Her eyes want to cry but they seem to realize that they don’t have that right.

Her hands shake uncontrollably as she commits the hue of his blood to memory, knowing that there will be no pardon for her.

And that, is a mercy she does not deserve.

XXXXX

Red. He has a complicated relationship with it. On the one hand, it is the color of the blood he has been forced to spill in battle. On the other, it is the color of the glorious sunsets of Mahishmati’s hills.

But he had never realized that red was also symbolic of something much more basic.

Life.

Life, that is solely dependent on this red liquid running through the body at an even pace.

Life, that is pumped 72 times in a minute by the heart to keep its master alive.

Life, that is seeping out of him through the numerous gashes and punctures in his flesh, most notably, the one created by his dearest friend and confidante.

There is simplicity in these final moments. He has regrets, of course. He wishes he could see his wife one last time. He wishes he could apologize to his mother.

He wishes he could hold his child in his arms just once.

But he finds his comfort. As he shifts a little to find a measure of ease in the reddened earth under him, six miles away, a part of him is being sponged clean of the red that coats him after coming out of his mother’s womb.

Red. Life comes a full circle.

But every circle is unique. And this one is no different.


End file.
